Friday, May 18, 2012

Bringing Back World PvP

I'm not much of a player vs player person, I am sure I have mentioned that before. I do love world player vs player however, and I am sure I have mentioned that before as well. Whenever I think of player vs player I start to think about how blizzard can bring it back and make it worth doing.

Thinking about it a bit today I've thought of a few things that I think would help the player vs player aspect of the game as well as return world PvP to the glory it once had.

Here are six things that need to be changed to see a true return to world PvP in my opinion.

City Personal:
- First up, guards. Ditch them. A few waves here and there, not so powerful, but enough to give a little resistance is all that is needed. Leave the super powered guards for the low level zones. Up to level 20 at most you can have the serious guards. After that, you are on your own. City guards are one of the reasons that world PvP has taken a huge hit.

- Second up, quest givers and key game play personal. Unflag them. Make inn keepers, quest givers, bankers and auctioneers unable to be killed. This will keep people from crying about not being able to do their quests or other things they need to do. It would also mean that on unbalanced servers you do not have to worry about excessive griefing. I know on one server I am on alliance own org and my poor tauren can never get anything done there. Some people get an ill feeling toward PvP because while leveling it ruined their game play. When I was leveling my first character I spent two days in ashenvale hoping the quest givers would respawn and I could take, or turn in, quests before they where killed again. This is one of the reasons I hate PvPers, because it left me with the feeling that most PvPers are jerks and assholes who just live to ruin the game play of others, a belief I still hold to this day.

- Third up, high military targets. We are removing super guards but that doesn't mean we can't have a few high priority targets in each city worth aiming for with a small contingent of super guards. People would receive their share of loot (more on that later) for being in the group that took down these key targets. In major cities there could be a few all over the place so instead of city attackers looking for leaders only, the attack could be anywhere that a high military target might be patrolling.

Remove Resilience:
- I can not stress this one enough. I think the removal of resilience would be the number one incentive for people to pick up playing the PvP part of the game even if they never attempted it before. There are dozens of reasons to not have resilience but only one reason to have it. Do PvPers really need to show off their 4500 resilience e-peen so badly that they refuse to accept the fact that if they where skilled at PvP they would not need that resilience to compete against someone with none? If no one had resilience it would be a fair fight based on skill always and not a fight of who put on their PvP gear and who didn't.

- The removal of resilience would also remove the number one reason I hear people say they do not like PvP. The whole gearing up concept and the need for a second set of gear just for it. If people felt they could be effective and not just a free kill target in their PvE gear they would PvP in their PvE gear. If people did not feel like they needed to collect a whole different set of gear just to PvP, and then gem, enchant, reforge and carry around a whole different set of gear, they would be more likely to jump in on the action. I can not even begin to tell you the number of times I was in a city being attacked and heard someone say, the attackers are lucky I do not have my PvP gear with me or I would help but without my PvP gear I would be useless and get slaughtered. One set of gear and the removal of resilience would fix that.

Offer Rewards:
- For the high military in major cities offer some sort of reward. Do not make the bodies need to be looted, just make it so when it is killed the gold goes directly into your bag so to speak. Perhaps have it based off the number of people used in the group. If a high military was labeled as a 40 man PvP boss it would give everyone 5 gold in a 40 man group but it if were done with a 20 man group they would get 20 gold, not 10, which would mean an even split, but more than that because they did something that required 40 people with less. Something like that. Something tangible. You will not only get the glory of the kill but the spoils as well.

- Maybe there could even be an in game raffle every day for every person that had 100 open world honor kills that day or killed at least two high military officers that day or killed one leader that day. Everyone that reached that requirement would be put into a random raffle to win 1000 gold for that day or even better, some raw gems in a goodie bag with some gold.

- Offer daily titles. Titles you can only have for the day you earn them and if you want them again tomorrow you need to complete the needed requirements to get them again. Something like if you kill 10 people in your city you get the temporary secondary title of City Defender. This would not replace your current title, it would be your secondary one. So Arthasdklol would be Arthasdklol, Destroyer's End and the next line would be City Defender. A new tab for secondary titles would be added and you could choose which one you activated that day to use, if any. Make some really hard, some super easy. When dailies reset, your secondary titles will also be reset. I am sure some alliance would love to be Pillager of Crossroad and some horde would love to be Pillager of Goldshire even if just for a day. And they would have to do it every day to get it again.

Make Killing a Gathering Profession:
- Give people more of a reason to kill people in the open world. Give non PvPers a real reason to get involved. A new catch all bag would be added for all players called the booty bag. Whenever you kill someone you get a gathering resource based on that persons professions. It would also be an item that fits the level of the person and it could come in amounts of 1-4 of said item. You kill a jewelcrafter you have a chance at getting a gem. Kill a skinner or leatherworker have a chance to get some leather. Kill a miner or blacksmith you have a chance to get some ore. Kill someone with no professions and you could get anything. You get the idea. I can see it already in guild chat. I'm going out to do some gathering at crossroads if anyone wants to come. I need some BC leather so heading to hellfire to see if I can find anyone flagged. Killing to gather could be fun.

- By making killing players a way to gather materials you are creating a way to break the monotony of flying around mining ore or picking herbs. People would go out killing just to spice things up or get a small change of pace from the same old same old. It would also allow people to get items for professions they do not even have. They can gather their herbs for their flasks by killing instead of needing to have an herbalist to get it themselves.

- Allow for the big score. Some random kills on very rare occasion could reward a PvP based pet in your booty bag. Just like you would see people kill a billion foxes in TB to try and get the fox kit they might start killing a billion of the opposing faction just to get some pet that can only be attained that way. Maybe even make the epic gems an extremely rare drop into your booty bag when you kill a jewelcrafter, or patterns for blacksmiths, tailors, etc. as all rare booty bag deposits.

Add World PvP Achievements:
- Many people like achievements. Adding achievements to world PvP might get quite a few people that where not previously interested in player vs player combat into it which in turn would mean more participants. Just take a look at any assembling of for the horde or for the alliance runs. There will always be people in the group that are not PvPers but are going just for the achievements and just for the mount. Achievements can be a great motivator.

- Make attacking and defending achievements for each area and main city. Defeat X amount of enemy players in Felwood, Defend stormwind from X amount of enemy invaders, Slaughter X amount of enemies while raiding thunder bluff. You get the idea. There could be ones for every zone, for every city, for every thing that would inspire people to go kill other people. Also the defeat X means there is always room to expand the achievements to add more. 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, 10000, so forth and so on.

- Make some meta achievements just like there is one for killing the four main leaders how about one for killing one high military officer in 25 different enemy settlements. Or maybe one for reaching the 100 kills in every zone. Or one for reaching the 1000 defends in each of your home cities. All things that could inspire people to PvP even if they never have before and even more so if they offer rewards like titles, pets, mounts, tabards, etc.

A Perpetual Battleground:
- How would a perpetual battleground help world PvP you might ask? Well, being there would be no win and no lose to the battleground there would be no people afraid to jump into it not knowing what to do. The battleground would serve as just one giant killing field. It is a place people can go, almost unnoticed on an individual basis, and get a taste for PvP, to practice killing and not to worry about objectives and being a fool for not understanding them. It makes for the perfect place for people to go into a PvP environment and learn. People could come and go as they wish and the sides would be kept even as best they could by the system.

- As to not be used as a farming area there would be no gathering drops into your booty bag while in the perpetual battleground and there would be a cap to how many honor kills you can farm per day in it but it would still get you into the mayhem of pure open world PvP and perhaps even inspire you to get out in the open world and start killing once you reached your cap and can no longer get anything from the battleground. After battling, you are in the grove, so might as well get out and get in the world and keep the blood flowing.

I think these six changes to player vs player could make world PvP something that would become fun again and something that would get people that have never PvPed into it. World PvP died, as a friend that has been around since the start said to me, the moment they added resilience. People became less likely to pick up their sword in defense when they knew the other team had come ready to fight and had the huge advantage of PvP gear. I happen to agree with him. I might have not played in vanilla but he is not the only one I've ever heard say that. Ask 100 hard core vanilla PvPers and most will tell you, resilience killed world PvP.

Remove resilience, add the other five incentives to get people back out in the world, and world PvP will make a huge return. I guarantee it.

12 comments:

There are dozens of reasons to not have resilience but only one reason to have it.

Err... THE reason for resilience is not rooted in e-peen, but rather in the fact that PvE-level DPS is balanced around bosses with tens of millions of HP, and not the 200k players run around with. Remember early Wrath PvP, when people died in 3-4 seconds? Good luck expressing skill within that window.

I suppose you could argue resilience should be baked in to everyone by default, but by the same token I might argue that we shouldn't have gear progression on the PvE side of things either. Either way, it is a stickier design issue than you are giving credit for.

That is exactly what I would say. It should be baked into the spec, that is how you would balance it. A considerably more reasonable way to create balance if you ask me.

Resilience is why I do not PvP. I have 3800. In today's world that is nothing. I do not play it enough so I am always a step behind and a bit weaker.

While it is true I can still beat some people even if I have less resilience, IE, any ret paladin on earth, having less puts me at a disadvantage and at an even bigger advantage if the other person is skilled.

You would not walk into dragon soul with original dungeon 346s and expect to pull 30K would you? Why would I walk into this seasons PvP season with last seasons gear unless you expect to perform baddly.

If there was no resilience at all myself, and probably millions of other part time PvPers, would gladly join in fighting if it where not for the fact we feel so left behind.

Resilience is bad for the game. There is no argument that is even remotely reasonable on why it should be in game.

Forgot to add, with PvP gear, as it is now, you can still down people in 3 or 4 seconds. Every so often if I run into someone in TB that is flagged I kill them. 90% of the time they are in all PvE gear and they never last more then three global cool downs.

Another reason resilience gear is bad and built in spec resilience would be better. Again, my own opinion of course.

They should get rid of PvE gear all together. This way i don't have to have 2 sets of gear to enchant, gem, reforge and all. This way I dont have to run heroics and raids to get gear to perfom in PvE. I should be able to hit just as hard in PvP gear as PvE gear... I dont raid enough so im always 1 step behind, and cant keep up with DPS enrage timers in Heroic raids.

I still think there should be two sets of gear, but it should be like how it was in vanilla... the "pvp gear" has more stamina on it, etc. Only having one set of gear would require people to raid in order to have good gear for pvp, which is unfair to people who don't raid in the same way that it's impossible to survive in pvp now for people who haven't been able to grind out a full set of pvp gear.

Resil definitely broke pvp and instead of making it a base stat, they need to just get rid of it and retroactively adjust all pvp gear to have different stats. There's no reason to have this stat on gear. I remember when I first started playing, I did not understand the difference between pvp and pve gear and couldn't understand why i needed special gear to be able to survive in pvp. It's a confusing stat and they need to just admit they made a mistake with it, not keep messing around with it and trying to fix it or "make it better".

This is a GREAT post! I really liked your idea about getting profession items from killing people with a certain profession. I'd love to end up with a bag full of trade goods after a nice round of killing horde. Actually, I really liked pretty much everything you wrote here.

I'm a bit wary of rewards from world PvP. Before the honor system was introduced we had lots and lots of world pvp with very little flaming and nastiness. The second items/rewards were introduced suddenly people who the day before had zero interest were flocking to the Barrens/Hillsbrad to get involved. The amount of name calling, rude messages on irc and so on increased a hundred fold too.

I like the gathering idea though. I get my grisly trophies for the Darkmoon Faire purely from PvP so being able to get extra bits and pieces that way would be good. They could also add some of the flavour items in the vein of the stuff we find in AV valley when you loot corpses like the Ezy mode t-shirt.

Getting rid of guards by itself would go a long way to fixing the issue I think. Having zones in which you can't fly would also help. I think that pre-90 MoP will provide a lot of pvp whilst we're all grounded.

Make all that gear purchasable with conquest. Change the whole welfare loot pinata of beating a boss and getting free loot and make everyone earn it by grinding for conquest or valor. Tada, loot system solved.

No need to raid. Raiding is for people that do not like to work for gear. I think that should be removed too. No more loot pinatas. Make people work for their gear.